I’m travelling through China in the coming week and need to do QR thing at the airport. I’m not sure how safe it will be for me to connect to the airport WiFi. I use Android phone and seeking any information on how to secure my data when connecting to airport WiFi. Ps: I can’t use mobile data.
Have strong passwords
Enable 2fa
Use a VPN (but not these free ones)
And double check if you selected the right wifi
And you’re fine.
Since pretty much all websites and apps use encrypted connections nowadays, an insecure WiFi really isn’t as much of a risk as it used to be.
Someone monitoring such a network can’t really see much beyond the names of websites you visit. Even that can be mostly mitigated if your browser or OS uses encrypted DNS. On Android encrypted DNS is called Private DNS, it’s a feature you can enable on recent versions at least.
Also, don’t go to places you don’t want a possible leak to happen. Like bank sites. Don’t send passwords (don’t login, but if you’re connected usually that’s fine, still refer to first point) while connected as well
VPN and a antivirus that offers https inspection.
if i was really paranoid about this, id bring a cheap factory reset phone and put necessary details in it and just use my main phone for photos till i get back. else id go VPN, 2fa, get my own sim (if its available in the airport) or maybe enable roaming for a while
Completely safe if that’s all you’re doing.
Connecting to a WiFi doesn’t enable them to hack into your phone and read your data - at worst they can read the data you send to any websites you visit over that WiFi, but if that’s HTTPS then it will be encrypted anyway.